System and method for selecting advertisements

ABSTRACT

A method for displaying interactive advertisements on a television having a controller connected thereto and configured for receiving input from a viewer of the television is disclosed. The controller has a receiver operable to receive advertisements and a processor operable to modify the advertisements. The method generally comprises requesting action by the viewer of the television, modifying an advertisement based on the action of the viewer, and displaying the modified advertisement on the television.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/475,822 filed May 18, 2012 which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 12/793,540 filed Jun. 3, 2010 (now U.S. Pat.No. 8,185,923), which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 09/789,926 filed Feb. 20, 2001, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 60/185,182, filed Feb. 25, 2000, eachof which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates generally to interactive television, andmore particularly, to a system and method for selecting or modifyingadvertisements to display to a viewer.

The distribution of advertisement via television is well established.Advertisers typically purchase advertisement time on a specific channeland time period with the rate being set by the popularity of programsairing within the time period. The more popular the underlying programor time slot, the more expensive the advertising rate. With the increasein the number of network stations, advertisers are confronted with thetask of determining which stations are appropriate for their products orservices. It is also difficult for advertisers to select a type ofadvertisement that will appeal to a broad cross section of thepopulation (e.g., males, females, young and old).

Commercials are often targeted based on the type of television shows aviewer watches. For example, an advertisement for tulips is preferablydisplayed to a viewer who watches gardening programs. Similarly, anadvertiser on the Internet may track the web sites that a user visitsand use this information to determine that the user is interested ingardening. A banner ad for tulips may then be displayed to the user.Internet advertisement companies often use a targeting technology thatallows advertisers to target consumers through the use of profilingcriteria developed based on users activity on the Internet. The decisionas to which advertisement to display is made remotely (e.g., cableheadend system or server). This requires that information about a userbe transferred to a remote collection area, which can create privacyproblems. A user may not want personal information collected on histelevision viewing or “surfing” habits and provided to advertisers orother service providers.

Furthermore, from a consumer's perspective, one of the most irritatingaspects relating to advertising is the inability of the consumer toprovide any control over the content of the advertisement information.The viewer can only watch what is presented and cannot switch betweendifferent advertisements as he can with programs or interact with theadvertisement.

New technology makes skipping commercials even easier. Consumers todayoften skip commercials that they do not want to see. However,commercials pay for almost everything on commercial television.High-priced shows are paid for by the value that advertisers perceive indisplaying their ads during the show. As commercials become lesseffective, more ad dollars are being devoted to product placement withinthe television shows. For example, advertisers pay high prices for anactor to use their product in a show. Ideally, advertisers want todeliver a message appropriate for each viewer. Advertisers are willingto pay higher costs for even better viewer focus than merely a group ofpeople watching a specific show.

There is, therefore, a need for a method and system that can be used totarget advertisements to specific viewers or create interest in theadvertisement by allowing viewers to interact with the advertisement.

SUMMARY

A method for displaying interactive advertisements on a televisionhaving a controller connected thereto and configured for receiving inputfrom a viewer of the television is disclosed. The controller has areceiver operable to receive advertisements and a processor operable tomodify the advertisements. The method generally comprises requestingaction by the viewer of the television, modifying an advertisement basedon the action of the viewer, and displaying the modified advertisementon the television.

The action requested by the viewer may include requesting an answer to aquestion displayed on the television, having a camera take a picture ofa person in the room, requesting the viewer to input a name into thecontroller, interaction with a game displayed on the television,requesting the viewer to input a personal profile into the controller,or rotating a product displayed by a video catalog, for example. Thecontroller may further include a camera, microphone, light sensor,temperature sensor, or a motion sensor for collecting information aboutthe viewer or viewing environment.

A system of the present invention generally comprises a controllerconfigured for connection to the television and operable to receiveinput from a viewer of the television. The controller has a receiveroperable to receive advertisements and a processor operable to requestaction by the viewer of the television, modify the advertisement basedon the action of the viewer, and display the modified advertisement onthe television.

In another aspect of the invention a system for displayingadvertisements on a television comprising a controller coupled to thetelevision generally comprises a memory device operable to storeinformation about at least one viewer of the television and a receiverconfigured for receiving an advertisement scheduled for display on thetelevision at a specified time. The system further includes a processoroperable to modify the received advertisement based on action by theviewer.

The above is a brief description of some deficiencies in the prior artand advantages of the present invention. Other features, advantages, andembodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in theart from the following description, drawings, and claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a television delivery system that may be used todelivery advertisements.

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustrating a set top box connected to atelevision and in communication with a headend system, and a remoteoperable to control the set top box.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a tuner used to select a channel, ademodulator operable to convert the signal into a digital format, and aprogram ID selector used to select a data stream containing one or moreadvertisements.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the set top box of FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 is a list of information which may be collected about a viewerand devices that may be used to collect the information.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating multiple advertisements insertedbetween program material.

Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding partsthroughout the several views of the drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description is presented to enable one of ordinary skillin the art to make and use the invention. Descriptions of specificembodiments and applications are provided only as examples and variousmodifications will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Thegeneral principles described herein may be applied to other embodimentsand applications without departing from the scope of the invention.Thus, the present invention is not to be limited to the embodimentsshown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with theprinciples and features described herein. For purpose of clarity,details relating to technical material that is known in the technicalfields related to the invention have not been described in detail.

As previously discussed, it is important to target advertisements tospecific viewers to make advertisements more effective. The presentinvention provides a method and system for displaying advertisements toconsumers that are interested in the message content of theadvertisements or making advertisements interactive so that consumershave more control over what type of advertisement they view and theadvertisement appears more interesting to the consumer.

In one embodiment, the method utilizes targeting of advertisements basedon passive techniques to convey a message to the viewer withoutrequiring active participation by the viewer. In another embodiment, thespeed of communication networks, such as the Internet or digital cableor satellite systems, are used to provide an interactive advertisement.Encouraging a viewer to interact with a commercial message is one way toget their attention. The viewer's response also shows that the viewer ispaying attention to the advertiser's message. As described below, a fastvideo line and an intelligent box in the viewers home allow the viewerto interact with the advertisement and give the viewer a reason to payattention to the advertiser's message. The following describes bothpassive (targeting) and active (interactive) techniques of the presentinvention.

The advertisements are preferably displayed on a television connected toa network system such as cable network system 30 shown in FIG. 1. In oneembodiment, the system 30 includes an operations center 32 where controlinformation is assembled in the form of digital data, a digitalcompression system where the digital data is compressed, combined,multiplexed, encoded, and mapped into digital signals for satellite 34transmission to a headend system 36 and a plurality of in home set topboxes 38, or other suitable receivers, operable to decompress thedigital data and display the advertisement for a viewer. Thedecompressed communication signals may be converted into analog signalssuch as NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) format signalsfor television display. The signal is typically compressed prior totransmission and may be transmitted through broadcast channels such ascable television lines or direct satellite transmission systems.Telephone lines, cellular networks, fiber optics or any other suitabletransmission means may be used in place of the cable system. Controlsignals sent to the set top box 38 are also decompressed and eitherexecuted immediately or placed in local storage such as RAM. The set topbox 38 may then be used to overlay or combine different signals to formthe desired display on the viewer's television.

It is to be understood that the system 30 described above and shownherein is only one example of a system used to convey signals to thetelevision 45. The television network system may be different thandescribed herein without departing from the scope of the invention.

The video signals and program control signals received by the set topbox 38 correspond to television programs, advertisements, and menuselections that the viewer may access through a viewer interface (FIG.2). The viewer interface may be buttons 40 located on the set top box 38or a portable remote control 42 which operates the set top box orinterfaces with control objects displayed on the television screen 44.The remote control 42 may include joystick type controls operable tomove a cursor on the television screen 44 as well as up/down and numericcontrol buttons. The control objects displayed on the screen may beup/down control icons or a menu containing a list of options. Forexample, interactive graphics may be displayed as an overlay to anadvertisement in a corner of the television screen 44. The viewer maymove a pointer over an up icon on screen 44 to go to the nextadvertisement or a down icon to go to the previous advertisement. Thegraphics may also allow a viewer to point to an object and interact withit (e.g., move it to a different location on the screen). The controlobjects are preferably generated by the set top box 38 which usesinteractive information to execute an application while audio and videoinformation is transmitted to the television 45. The set top box 38 maycombine audio and video information with interactive graphics prior totransmitting the information to the television 45.

The set top box 38 may be configured for receiving analog signals,digital signals, or both analog and digital signals. If digital signalsare received by the set top box 38, the advertisements may be variantsof one another (e.g., same video stream with different graphicoverlays), as further described below. The set top box 38 may beconfigured for use with an interactive digital system which provides aforward path to the user and a return path to the local network gateway.The return path provides a two-way data stream to enable interactivity.

The set top box 38 may be configured, for example, to receive thefollowing input: analog video channels; digital video channels whichsupport broadband communications using Quadrature Amplitude Modulation(QAM); and control channels for two-way signaling and messaging. Thedigital QAM channels carry compressed and encoded multiprogram MPEG(Motion Picture Experts Group) transport streams. A transport systemextracts the desired program or advertisement from the transport streamand separates the audio, video, and data components, which are routed toan audio decoder, video decoder, and RAM, respectively. The set top box39 may further include a compositor which combines graphics and textwith MPEG or analog video.

A broadband analog signal (e.g., 680, 750, 860 MHz) received by the settop box 38 carries multiple channels and is conveyed to a tuner 48 whichselects one frequency band out of the available spectrum (FIG. 3). Intypical cable systems, a 6 MHz piece of spectrum (i.e., channel) isselected out of a range of 50 MHz to possibly 1,000 MHz. The 6 MHzbandwidth may include a program and a number of data streams carryingdifferent advertisements. A demodulator 50 converts the analog signal toa digital signal (e.g., 28 Mb/s) containing a plurality of data streams(e.g., 3 Mb/s data stream). A program ID (PID) selector 52 may be usedto select one 3 Mb/s data stream. In order to reduce the 28 Mb/s datastream to a 3 Mb/s data stream, the PID selector 52 looks for packetshaving a requested program ID, and throws out the rest of the packets.This allows a viewer to switch between different data streams within the6 MHz bandwidth and display various advertisements for viewing. Thus,viewers watching different television sets may view differentadvertisements even though the viewers are tuned to the same channel.

It is to be understood that the system used to select a channel andconvert the analog signal to digital may be different than shown in FIG.3 and that the sample data streams and channel bandwidths may bedifferent than described herein without departing from the scope of theinvention.

In a first embodiment of the present invention, passive technologies areused to improve an advertiser's ability to convey a message to a viewer.As described below, these technologies include identifying the viewer,the viewer's preferences, or the viewing environment.

Preferably, the system does not transmit or publish any personalinformation about the user. In one aspect of the invention, severalforms of rich-media advertising are delivered to the user's home and theset top box decides which content to deliver to the viewer. The systemmay report back to a home system which commercials are viewed, withoutidentifying or personal information about the viewer. FIG. 4 illustratesan example of a set top box that may be used to receive information fromthe headend cable system 36, collect information about the viewer orviewing environment, and send information back to a central office whichcollects data. The set top box 38 may include, for example, a camera 60which collects information about specific viewers in the room and may beused to collect images of specific viewers for placement inadvertisements, as described below. A microphone 62 may also be used toidentify viewers in the room with the use of speech recognitionsoftware. The set top box 38 may further include sensors such as amotion sensor 64 used to detect viewer activity in the viewing room, alight sensor 68 operable to detect the lighting in the room, and atemperature sensor 70 operable to sense the temperature in the room. Aviewer may also manually input data into a manual input receiver 72. Aremote input receiver 74 is provided to interface with the remotecontrol 42. The set top box 38 further includes memory 76 which is usedto at least temporarily store data about a viewer and may also be usedto temporarily store advertisements sent from the headend system 36 tothe set top box 38 for display to a viewer. A central processing unit(CPU) 78 is provided to process information collected about a viewer andmodify an advertisement accordingly. For example, an advertiser may senda single advertisement to the set top box along with instructions on howto modify the advertisement based on viewer information stored in memory76 of the set top box 38. The processor 78 uses this information tomodify the advertisement before displaying it to the viewer.

FIG. 5 shows a list of exemplary information that can be obtained andstored in set top box 38 to provide information about a viewer and theirenvironment. For example, camera 60 may be used to recognize a specificviewer in the room. Once the set top box 38 recognizes a viewer, asymbol may be displayed on the set top box identifying who is in theroom. Thus, a person can be identified with a symbol rather than a name.The viewer may also be identified by speech recognition software usingmicrophone 62, by the viewer entering a code into the set top box 38, orby the viewer using a specific remote control 42 identified for use bythe viewer. The set top box 38 may also record shows watched, viewingtimes, and channel change (surfing) activity.

A viewer may also create a personal profile by entering demographics andrelated information into the set top box 38 (e.g., by querying theviewer on his birthplace, education level, type of employment, age, sex,and the like). The personal profile may also be created based on viewinghistory of the user through an information gathering process. Thepersonal profile may be set up during initialization of the set top box38 the first time the viewer uses the box, for example. Once theinformation is entered, it will be stored in the set top box memory 76and may later be modified by the viewer, or additional profiles may beadded for new viewers. Since this information is stored on the viewer'sset top box 38 and not transferred to a remote data collection site, theviewer does not need to be concerned about privacy issues.

Various equipment may also be used to detect the environment of the room(e.g., temperature, light, motion of viewers, noise, number of viewers).This information may be used to determine the mood of the viewer andselect an advertisement that is appropriate. For example, if the room isdark and the volume is low, the viewer is most likely not interested inseeing a loud bright commercial full of people and activity.

There are many sources of information about the viewer's interests. Eachtime the viewer clicks the remote control 42 there is a bit moreinformation about what they like to view. The camera 60 and microphone62 in the set top box 38 may be used to provide information on who is inthe room and how active they are. Even knowing that the room is dark andthe volume on the TV set is low provides information about the mood andwhat messages the viewer will most likely be interested in. It isdifficult to absolutely recognize faces without help from the users (ifonly to provide a name to go with the face.) But it is easy to note thatone face is always in the room when watching Oprah and another facewatches Monday Night Football and from that correspondence tell who iswatching the national news. The most appropriate commercial is thenchosen based on who is in the room.

An especially valuable bit of information is knowing which content keepsthe viewer's attention. Actively pressing a button to switch channelsprovides input that the viewer was not interested in that particularcommercial. Playing the same commercial again will probably not fare anybetter. On the other hand, if the viewer stops changing channels afterlanding on a specific ad, then it should probably be played again. Thisis a simple example of reinforcement learning. The memory device 76 andCPU 78 may be used for reinforcement learning and video based tracking.

Reinforcement learning may be used as follows. Each commercial maycontain one or more keywords indicating the content of the commercial.The keywords are used to determine which advertisements a consumer ismost likely to watch. The keywords preferably include a product name,product category, and a bit about the style of the advertisement. Eachtime a commercial is played, the viewer's behavior is captured and usedto modify the weight attached to each keyword. Thus, a commercial mightbe labeled “Doritos, snack food, sexy female.” Each time a viewerwatches the entire commercial then the values for those three keywordsare increased. Likewise, if the viewer quickly changes channels awayfrom that particular commercial the value of those keywords aredecreased. When an advertisement is ready to be displayed informationstored in the set top box is used to select the commercial whosekeywords have the highest value.

As previously described, information about the viewer or environment maybe used to select one advertisement from a plurality of advertisementsdelivered to the set top box 38. The system shown in FIG. 6 providesthree advertisements for selection for display on a television during abreak in television programming 92. Instead of providing a singleadvertisement which may or may not be of interest to the viewer, thesystem shown in FIG. 6 provides three different advertisements (or threevariants of one advertisement) 94, 96, 98. For example, the firstadvertisement 94 may be for a food product directed to young males, thesecond advertisement 96 may be for the same food product but directed toyoung females, and the third advertisement 98 may also be for the samefood product but directed to parents. In another example, the variantsmay be different colors or types of cars. Variations in theadvertisements may be provided by a number of different animationtechniques including sprites, morphing, or embedded constraintsgraphics, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/514,056,filed Feb. 25, 2000, Ngo et al., entitled “System and Method forDisplaying Advertisements” which is incorporated by reference herein.Each advertisement may include images, audio data, and informationalreferences. The images may be advertisements for products or servicesand may include still pictures or video images, for example. Audio datamay include voice, music, or other audio signals for playback incoordination with the images. The images may also be informationalimages unrelated to advertising. For example, information servicesincluding weather information, stock market services, news services orthe like may provide the informational images and audio data.

The advertisements may also include links to other information such asdetailed information about the advertised product, purchasinginformation and the like. For example, if after viewing anadvertisement, the viewer wants to obtain additional information aboutan advertised product, the viewer may select an option listed in a menuwhich immediately directs the viewer to a new commercial or informationpiece providing additional information on the product.

After the advertisement is displayed, aggregate viewing feedback may beused to report back who actually viewed the commercial and a bit ofinformation about how it was received by the viewer. As previouslydescribed, the system includes two-way channels so that information canbe sent back to the headend 36 and advertiser. The set top box 38 may beused, for example, to gather information about the viewing habits of thehousehold. The set top box 38 may report back that a household watched aparticular commercial. More detailed information can be collected bynoting correspondences between which shows are watched and whichcommercials are seen. Using this tracking technology, detailedinformation about who is actually in the room during the displaying ofan advertisement can be collected. The following is an example of thetype of data that may be collected and provided to an advertiserregarding the success of their advertisements:

Viewer Statistics:

-   -   12 million married women between the ages of 40 and 50 viewed        the commercial;    -   1 million turned the commercial off during the duration; those        who turned it off:        -   are three times more likely to watch thrillers than those            who did not turn it off; and        -   are two times less likely to watch soap operas.    -   6 million teen girls viewed the commercial;    -   1 million teen boys viewed the commercial; and    -   1 million girls between the age of 6 and 12 viewed the        commercial.

In addition to sending separate advertisements as shown in FIG. 6,advertisers may send layered commercials, where each layer correspondsto a different product or feature. The video signal seen by the vieweris created by overlaying the appropriate layers. The result is that oneviewer might see a bright red car while another more sedentary viewersees a blue car. (See, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/514,056, referenced above.) The set top box 38 is preferably operableto receive MPEG streams with layer codes and MPEG stream modificationsthat describe product position and produce real-time video processing tosubstitute new product video. MPEG-4, for example, allows the video tobe described in terms of a number of layers. To produce the video thatis seen by the user, the set top box decompresses each layer and thenadds the appropriate layers together before sending the pixels to thescreen. Layers are used by the system to represent different products.Using the tracking technology described above, the most appropriateproduct is selected and the correct video layer displayed to the user.Other modifications may be made to the advertisement. For example, basedon the viewer's home address, the address of the closest store can bedisplayed, and even directions. Different features may be emphasized tothose people who watch game shows versus those that watch comedies. Forexample, advertisers may want to change the product characteristics fordifferent viewers, list different advantages or change the color ofproducts. A generic product can be replaced with a specific, customproduct for each viewer. This placement could be done up to the lastminute, with each type of viewer going to the highest bidder.

Alternatively, an advertisement modification may be sent down to theviewer's set top box 38 ahead of time and stored in memory 76. Thenusing data portions of the MPEG video stream areas of the video whichshould be modified are identified. The set top box 38 can then use theviewer profile or other information to find the right pixels to modifyand perform the image processing operations.

The information collected about viewers may be used to let advertisersbid for different viewers. For example, one advertiser may be willing topay 5 cents for any female between the ages of 20 and 40, while anotheradvertiser may pay 10 cents for twenty-five year-old females. Thisallows the advertisement to be selected based on the highest bidder.Orders may be collected from advertisers and the commercial selectedbased on the highest bidder for that specific viewer.

The techniques described above cater to the passive nature of mosttelevision viewing. However, people often like to be in control of whatthey view. For example, people spend time at Amazon's web site becausethey like the content and the feel of the electronic store. Interactionbetween an advertiser and a consumer can help to make a sale. Thefollowing describes a number of different techniques that allowconsumers to interact with advertisements and thus improve the value toadvertisers.

Local intelligence in the set top box 38 allows for many different typesof viewer interaction. In one embodiment, the advertiser presents theviewer with a question and the viewer selects an answer with the remotecontrol 42. The advertisement may solicit an answer to a question tokeep the viewer engaged (e.g., have you tried the Pepsi challenge yet?).The set top box 38 is used to report back the answer, along with viewingstatistics using a set top box modem or other connection. The advertisercan then use this information to issue coupons to the appropriateviewers.

Presenting an advertisement in the form of a game is another method thatmay be used to capture a viewer's attention. For example, a beeradvertiser may let viewers shoot at frogs or lizards on the screen.Another example is to put a viewer in a James Bond road race game with aBMW Z3 so that viewers can see if they like the experience. The game maybe downloaded through a digital connection into the set top box 38, forexample. A pointing device which interacts with the television 45 andset top box 38 is preferably included in the system. The advertiser mayalso send a coupon (electronic or paper) to viewers that score high in asimple 30-second game. Viewers may also choose their ending to anadvertisement. Multiple versions of the ad may be sent to the set topbox 38, as previously described. The set top box 38 then plays theappropriate ending, based on the user's interactions.

Another method for capturing the viewer's attention is to personalize anadvertisement. For example, camera 60 installed on the set top box 38can be used to take a picture of a viewer's baby. A furniture commercialis then displayed with the baby playing on the floor surrounded byfurniture in the advertisement. Similarly, a family dog can be displayedin a dog food commercial or a face from the family can be looking out ofa hotel window. The advertisement may also contain the viewer along withtheir favorite movie star.

The set top box 38 is preferably configured to process real-time video.Video Rewrite technology may be used to build models of a human face.(See, for example, “Video Rewrite: Driving Visual Speech with Audio”,Bregler et al. ACM SIGGRAPH 97.) This technology may be usedinteractively by requesting the viewer to stand in front of the cameraor via passive viewing of the audience using the set top box 38. Adialog box that requests one of the children to stand in front of thecamera may be presented to the viewer. Face-id software may be used toidentify faces in the room and then extract the faces for later use.(See, for example, “Probalistic Visual Learning for ObjectRepresentation”, B. Moghaddam et al., IEEE Transactions on PatternAnalysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 19, No. 7, July 1997.)

Computer vision may also be used to track what the viewer is doing andtailor the commercial to fit the viewer's activities. This may be assubtle as allowing a spokesperson's eyes to follow the viewer around theroom as he goes about his activities. It may also be more direct byinserting the viewer's name or other personalized information into thepitch. In another example, a dog in the advertisement may do somethingappropriate to get the attention of viewers in the room. The video maybe modified so that a spokesperson speaks a viewer's name.

Computer vision technology may also be used to sense where the user is.(See, for example, “A Virtual Mirror Interface Using Real-time RobustFace Tracking”, Darrell et al., Proceedings of the Third InternationalConference on Face and Gesture Recognition, IEEE Computer Society Press,April 1998, Nara, Japan.) Using technology such as Video Rewrite (orgeneric computer graphics) images that follow the user around the roomcan be generated. Facial identification may be used to determine who isin the room and a character in the advertisement may use the viewer'sname.

Custom video catalogs may also be used to attract a viewer's attention.The catalogs may be used to get more information about a product so thatthe consumer can make an informed buying decision. Many advertisers dothis today by providing a web address. But interactive television can domuch more by giving viewers a chance to spend more time with theproduct. The advertisements may contain three-dimensional video modelsof the product which can be turned and stopped by the viewer to see howthe product looks from different angles. Technology such as fly-aroundvideo may be used, for example. Fly-around video allows a viewer to seea product from all angles. The set top box 38 preferably includes asystem such as Apple's Quick Time VR Authoring (QTVR) or similartechnology to store video and allow real-time video processing tosynthesize product views. A graphical user-interface provides a userwith control of angles. Apple's QTVR technology, or Fly-Around Video(see e.g., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 60/152,352, “Head-TrackedLight Field Movies: A New Multimedia Data Type” by G. Miller et al.filed Sep. 7, 1999) allows a user to view an object from many differentdirections. When a user is browsing through the video catalog allobjects are preferably three-dimensional so that the user can navigatearound the object using the remote control or other user interfacetechniques.

The system may also be used to put a viewer into a virtual environment.This includes putting an image of the viewer on the couch of a furnituredisplay or draping clothes over the image. The viewer's body size can becaptured electronically, subtlety slimmed down, and then draped with theadvertiser's product. Electric Planet articulated pose estimationtechnology may be used to see how the person is moving and to move thecorresponding video model in real time. (See, for example, U.S. Pat. No.6,141,463 issued Oct. 31, 2000, by M. Covell et al., “Method and Systemfor Estimating Jointed-Figure Configurations.”)

All references cited above are incorporated herein by reference.

Although the present invention has been described in accordance with theembodiments shown, one of ordinary skill in the art will readilyrecognize that there could be variations made to the embodiments withoutdeparting from the scope of the present invention. Accordingly, it isintended that all matter contained in the above description and shown inthe accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and notin a limiting sense.

We claim:
 1. A method for displaying interactive advertisements on atelevision having a controller connected thereto and configured forreceiving input from a viewer of the television, the controller having areceiver operable to receive advertisements and a processor operable tomodify the advertisements, the method comprising: requesting action bythe viewer of the television; receiving the requested action from theviewer; receiving personal information or preferences associated withthe viewer, wherein at least a portion of the personal information orpreferences is input by the viewer via a user input device, and whereinthe personal information includes an image of the viewer; receiving atthe receiver at least one television advertisement, wherein the receivedtelevision advertisement relates to at least one product offered by aparticular advertiser, modifying the advertisement based on the actionof the viewer, wherein at least one action is received from the viewerduring display of the advertisement, and wherein modifying anadvertisement includes inserting the image of the viewer into theadvertisement; displaying the modified advertisement on the television;and transmitting to a remote data collection site an indication of thedisplayed advertisement, wherein the transmission does not include anypersonally identifiable information associated with the viewer.
 2. Themethod of claim 1 wherein requesting action comprises displaying aquestion on the television and requesting an answer from the viewer. 3.The method of claim 1 wherein the controller further includes a cameraand requesting action comprises having the camera take a picture of aperson in a room containing the television.
 4. The method of claim 3further comprising inserting an image received by the camera into theadvertisement.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein requesting actioncomprises requesting the viewer to input a name into the controller. 6.The method of claim 1 wherein modifying an advertisement comprisesinserting the name into the advertisement.
 7. The method of claim 1wherein displaying the advertisement comprises displaying an interactivegame, and wherein requesting action comprises requesting interactionwith the game.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein requesting actioncomprises requesting the viewer to input a personal profile into thecontroller.
 9. The method of claim 8 wherein modifying an advertisementcomprises modifying the advertisement based on the personal profile. 10.The method of claim 1 wherein the advertisement is a video catalog andwherein the action of the viewer comprises rotating a product displayedin the video catalog.
 11. The method of claim 1 wherein the controllercomprises a light sensor, and wherein the method further comprisessensing the light intensity in a room containing the television.
 12. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the controller comprises a temperature sensor,and wherein the method further comprises sensing the temperature in aroom containing the television.
 13. The method of claim 1 wherein thecontroller comprises a motion sensor, and wherein the method furthercomprises sensing activity of the viewer.
 14. The method of claim 1wherein modifying the advertisement comprises selecting an advertisementbased on bids submitted by advertisers.
 15. A system for displayingadvertisements on a television, wherein the system includes a controlleroperably coupled to the television, the controller comprising: a memorydevice operable to store information about at least one viewer of thetelevision, wherein the information includes an image of the viewer; areceiver configured for receiving — an advertisement scheduled fordisplay on the television at a specified time, and preferencesassociated with the viewer; a processor operable to modify the receivedadvertisement based on action by the viewer, including — inserting theimage of the viewer into the advertisement, and emphasizing certainfeatures of at least one product based on the preferences associatedwith the viewer; and a transmitter operable to transmit data to a remotecollection site, wherein the data includes an indication of the modifiedadvertisement and does not include any personally identifiableinformation associated with the viewer.
 16. The system of claim 14wherein the viewer information comprises a personal profile of theviewer.
 17. The system of claim 16 wherein the viewer informationcomprises identification of the viewer.
 18. The system of claim 14wherein the advertisement is a video catalog and action by the viewer isselecting a view of a displayed product.
 19. The system of claim 14wherein the advertisement is a game and action by the viewer isinteraction with the game.
 20. A computer-implemented method ofdisplaying an interactive advertisement to a viewer via a displaydevice, wherein the display device is connected to a media transceiver,and wherein the media transceiver is configured to receive input fromthe viewer via a user input device, the method comprising: receiving atthe media transceiver at least one advertisement; receiving at the mediatransceiver a bid for the viewer from each of multiple advertisers,wherein the bid is based on at least one or more demographic statisticsassociated with the viewer; selecting at the media transceiver thereceived advertisement for display based on a highest bid offered forthe viewer; requesting by the media transceiver an action from theviewer during display of the advertisement; receiving at the mediatransceiver the requested action from the viewer during display of theadvertisement, wherein the received action includes personal informationor preferences associated with the viewer, and wherein at least aportion of the personal information or preferences is input by theviewer to the media transceiver via the user input device; creating atthe media transceiver an interactive advertisement, wherein theinteractive advertisement is created by — modifying the receivedadvertisement based on the received action, and emphasizing certainfeatures of at least one product based on the personal information orpreferences associated with the viewer; and displaying the interactiveadvertisement to the viewer via the display device.
 21. The method ofclaim 20 wherein requesting the action from the viewer comprises atleast one of: displaying a question on the display device, wherein thereceived action includes an answer to the question, and wherein theanswer to the question is input by the viewer to the media transceivervia the user input device; displaying an interactive game to the viewer,wherein the received action includes interaction by the viewer with theinteractive game, and wherein the interaction by the viewer is performedvia the user input device; requesting the viewer to input a personalprofile via the user input device, wherein the received action comprisesthe requested personal profile, and wherein the requested personalprofile is input by the viewer to the media transceiver via the userinput device; and displaying an interactive video catalog to the viewer,wherein the received action comprises interaction by the viewer with aproduct displayed in the interactive video catalog, and wherein theinteraction by the viewer is performed via the user input device. 22.The method of claim 20 wherein the personal information associated withthe viewer comprises a name of the viewer.
 23. A system for displayingan interactive advertisement to a viewer via a display device, thedisplay device connected to a media transceiver, and the mediatransceiver configured to receive input from the viewer through a userinput device, the system comprising: means for receiving at least oneadvertisement at the media transceiver, wherein the received televisionadvertisement relates to at least one product offered by a particularadvertiser; means for receiving at the media transceiver a bid for theviewer from each of multiple advertisers, wherein the bid is based on atleast one or more demographic statistics associated with the viewer;means for selecting at the media transceiver the received advertisementfor display based on a highest bid offered for the viewer; means forrequesting interaction at the media transceiver from the viewer duringdisplay of the advertisement; means for receiving the requestedinteraction at the media transceiver from the viewer during display ofthe advertisement, wherein the received interaction includes personalinformation or preferences associated with the viewer, and wherein atleast a portion of the personal information or preferences is input bythe viewer to the media transceiver via the user input device; and meansfor displaying the interactive advertisement to the viewer via thedisplay device.
 24. The system of claim 23 wherein the media transceiverincludes a camera, and wherein the system further comprises: means forcapturing by the media transceiver an image of the viewer; and means forinserting the image into the interactive advertisement.
 25. The systemof claim 23 wherein the media transceiver includes at least one of alight sensor, a temperature sensor, a motion sensor and a microphone,and wherein the received advertisement is selected based on at least oneof a sensed light intensity, a sensed temperature, a sensed level ofactivity and a sensed level of noise.